Designed in the Gothic style by the New York architect Carl Pfeiffer in 1873, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church is the largest Presbyterian sanctuary in Manhattan. The church cornerstone was laid on June 9, 1873. At 286 feet in height, the steeple, completed in 1876, was then the tallest in New York City.

Our church has had four homes
The present building is the fourth home of the historic Fifth Avenue Church founded on November 6, 1808. John McComb, Jr., designed the first building on Cedar Street. The second church on Duane Street in the downtown area of Manhattan was designed by James Dakin in the Greek Revival style. The third church, located at Fifth Avenue and Nineteenth Street, was designed by Leopold Eidlitz. In a short period, the church had stood in three locations, paralleling the northward growth of the city, and by this time, the trustees wanted a more permanent location. They felt that the recently established Central Park would be a natural barrier against business and factory expansion. The location of the present building, however, was quite undeveloped in 1873.

The architect
Eleven architects were considered, but it finally came down to a choice between George Post and Carl Pfeiffer. The church commissioned Pfeiffer, a 57-year-old German émigré, who was less known than Post. Pfeiffer's other known building in New York was the Metropolitan Savings Bank designed in 1867. One can speculate that his engineering ability appealed to the trustees and that he eagerly listened to the requirements of the strong-willed minister, Dr. John Hall. Carl Pfeiffer's engineering ability is reflected in the modern technological innovations introduced into the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, including the installation of an excellent heating and ventilating system with openings below the pews for the heated air to rise.

The interior design
The general form of the interior followed Reformed Protestant worship precepts, with the most important being the emphasis on the spoken word, including preaching and reading scripture. Dr. Hall, then one of the most renowned preachers in New York, no doubt requested that Pfeiffer locate the pulpit centrally with a choir loft and organ above and Communion table below. All seats were then focused on this central point: the Sanctuary floor slopes and the pews fan out from the pulpit, and the balcony surrounds all that is below, thus bringing the entire congregation within clear sight and hearing range of the preaching and musical ministry.

Unlike the rigidity of the Gothic cathedral, the interior of this church contains no right angles - all flows outward from the pulpit. The openness and lightness of the space renders the modern Gothic decoration more comforting and accessible, suggesting a God present in the lives of ordinary people. While the building's interior is cloaked in the decorative style of Medieval times, the planning principles were "modern" and Reformed by the standards of the 19th century and are as "modern" and useful to us today as they were then.

The woodwork
The church commissioned the New York firm of Kimbel and Cabus to design the interior ash woodwork, including the pews, pulpit and gallery front. Although there have been many alterations, most of the original carved woodwork remains intact. Kimbel and Cabus, once a prominent New York furniture and interiors manufacturer, exhibited furniture in the modern Gothic style in the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. In recent years, their pieces have been acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The stained glass
The brilliantly colored stained glass windows were designed and produced by John C. Spence of Montreal, Canada, a city known for its fine ecclesiastical work. The designs, inspired by the English Reform precepts of the 19th century, allow more light to penetrate the interior. There were no Biblical figures of saints who could be worshipped apart from God - an iconoclastic fear still prevalent among some austere 19th century Presbyterians.

Although the church's beautiful interiors are carefully
preserved, functional changes were required over the years. The organ case was replaced in 1913 and modified in 1960 with the installation of a new organ, which allows more seating for the choir. Electrical fixtures replaced the original gas lighting. The stenciling covering the ceiling and extending below the Gothic arches of the windows has been repainted. The walls below, originally stenciled, are painted off-white today.

The Church House and Chapel
The church's two-story annex on Fifty-Fifth Street was replaced in 1925 by a ten-story Church House designed by the New York architect, James Gamble Rogers (1867-1947). Trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Rogers is best known for his collegiate Gothic architecture for the Memorial Quadrangle and Harkness Tower at Yale University. New York philanthropist, Edward Stephen Harkness, provided the funds for the Church House and the beautiful chapel.

The design of the Chapel offers a direct contrast in design philosophy from that of the much larger Sanctuary. The planning is that of a small parish Gothic church. All is rigidly organized in a long and narrow rectangular space from back to front where there is a semi-circular apse with a raised pulpit off to one side and a lectern on the other. In a church prior to the Reformation, the center of the apse would contain an altar table where the priest would celebrate the Eucharist. Following Reformed Church precepts, seats for the ministers replace the altar table. As with the main Sanctuary, the primacy of the spoken word is expressed over the celebration of the Eucharist as the central act of worship.

The hard stone surfaces of the interior, with its resultant echo, make the Chapel superb for the performance of organ and choir music. The drier, sound-absorptive wood and carpet of the Sanctuary make it more suitable to hearing the phonic sounds of the spoken word. While both spaces employ Gothic decoration, the darker hues in the dimly lighted Chapel seem to reinforce the mystical and omnipotent nature of God so prevalent in the sensibility of the great Gothic cathedrals. The Chapel uses stained glass in the traditional Gothic manner to illustrate Bible stories. The most exquisitely beautiful window in the church is found above the balcony in the rear of the Chapel. This warm and inviting building serves as an appropriate home to the hundreds of people from around the world who come here each Sunday for Worship. Services are held each Sunday at 9:30 am and 11:15 am - join us!

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Copyright © 1999-2008 Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church,
7 West 55th Street, New York, NY 10019 212.247.0490